The Delaware Supreme Court recently clarified the “ab initio” requirement announced in the Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp. case as part of the set of standards that would allow for the BJR standard to apply to a challenged merger. See Olenik v. Lodzinski, No. 392, 2018 (Del. Supr., rev. April 11, 2019).  The High Court determined that the requirement was not satisfied based on the facts of the instant case because the “economic bargaining took place prior to the date” when the protections announced in the Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp. case needed to be in place.

Much commentary has already been written about this case, so it will not be covered thoroughly on these pages, but I refer to prior decisions that have applied the ab initio requirement, for background purposes, as noted on these pages.